I am sick of fun-filled fundraisers. I want to go to a party that does not benefit a needy family, an endangered species or a crumbling historic site.
I want to get gussied up and go out for no other reason than to drink and dance ’til the bars close, celebrate dawn with bacon and eggs, and nurse a hangover with red beer. I’m sick of dragging my checkbook to reserved-seat events. I’m ready for a bash without cover or cause.
Once upon a time we volunteered by rolling up our sleeves, breaking a sweat and getting our hands dirty. The mayor, the sheriff, neighbors and houseguests pitched in at barn raisings, roundups and brandings.
We served burgers and beer to everyone who bagged trash, built floats and timed races, even when their kids mysteriously came in first on every downhill. We baked cookies, hauled them off to suppers in church basements and bought them back.
In the Old West volunteering was powered by participation and passion.
We didn’t look to out-of town facilitators to define our lifestyle, wait for consultants to assess our needs, or rely upon bureaucrats to develop strategic plans. Old ladies sat around kitchen tables and decided what needed done, and their old men put on nail belts and did it. Nobody thought of it as volunteering. It was just being neighborly.
Ladies who didn’t have a clue what the word docent meant took care of the museum. Town dads passed a hat to send kids to the Olympics. We launched Meals on Wheels because it was needed. We created Friday night jackpot rodeo because it was a blast, and we put lights on the ball fields because it kept kids off the streets.
The guys from Search and Rescue built their barn and the gals at the Yarn Barn wrote a grant to fund an assisted-living facility. A gaggle of young mothers organized a community construction spree that involved everyone in town in building a pair of state-of-the-art neighborhood playgrounds.
In the New West, volunteers are check-writing consumers.
They want to attend wine tastings in places that don’t grow grapes, see opera in towns where theater takes place on the high school stage, and dress up black tie for dances with a deejay.
When you live in a McCastle, the only locals you know well enough to invite to dinner are the hired hands who dust your wine cellar, faux finish your living room and service your cars. You would never dream of including the people who are doing real “community service,” drunks who are working off DUIs by cleaning the museum or landscaping the library under the watchful eye of the sheriff.
There have always been second-home owners. Historically they have been czars, kings, emirs and royalty who built lavish estates, country compounds and hunting lodges. Romans escaped to their villas, Doges to palaces, Soviets to dachas and Impressionists to the woods. English royalty have always shuttled from castle to castle.
Today’s elite – rich, well-educated baby boomers – are boutique ranching on gated mountaintop preserves that cost more than the Louisiana Purchase. M’lord made his money in gas caps, shampoo or computer chips and spends it on M’lady’s horses, tanning and travel.
While local ranchers, miners and merchants are fighting to stay alive in the towns they built by volunteering, the Newbies throw their money at safaris, fly fishing, para-skiing and playing cowboy.
Although they write checks to United Way and the Arts Council, they are isolated from the community by wealth, location-neutral businesses and hidden mountaintop retreats. Their corrals, stocked ponds and swimming pools are huge and private.
Their indoor arenas, shooting ranges and tennis courts are shared with friends, not townies. They look to the Extension Office for advice from master gardeners, not for classes in upholstery. Hobby ranchers are doing for fun what we did for survival.
They are not economically, politically and socially involved in the issues that we rag on at planning commission meetings and down at the legion hall: When County Road No. 6 will be paved, whether pop machines will be installed in schools, how VNA will pay for the well-baby clinic.
They are not involved because they can afford the luxury of “hiring it out.” They have financial managers, estate managers and ranch managers who move their cattle, maintain their land trusts and maximize their income tax deductions. We have three kids, two jobs and a mortgage.
It’s hard to find a common bond. In the Old West we knew what needed done and did it. In the New West we shut up and take the money.
